


look how you found me

by bnaz



Category: Dead To Me (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/F, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-06 02:39:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19053571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bnaz/pseuds/bnaz
Summary: Maybe that was part of it, the desire to be close to the consequences of her actions, to see them up close, to sit where Ted had sat, sleep where Ted had slept, and love the people Ted had loved.





	look how you found me

**Author's Note:**

> how I wish their conversation in the finale had gone.

“You are a sociopath.”

  
Maybe Jen was right. Maybe that was the answer to every question that had been haunting her since Ted left that person sized dent on the bumper of her '66 Mustang. Why didn’t I just stop? Why didn’t I confess? Why did I let myself fall in love with the people whose lives I’ve destroyed? How selfish of her, she thought, to feel such things for those she’s hurt. But that was the unexpected result, falling in love with these people. She fell in love with a table set for four, with taking two glasses of wine from the cupboard, with the excitement of hearing a set of keys jangle outside the front door. How could she be a sociopath when she felt as if this love was now just as part of her as the blood coursing through her veins? Maybe that was part of it, the desire to be close to the consequences of her actions, to see them up close, to sit where Ted had sat, sleep where Ted had slept, and love the people Ted had loved. Judy wondered if that’s what Jen meant. She wondered if that’s what she believed.

“I love you,”

“Well I fucking hate you.”

No you don’t, she wanted to say. You don’t because I see it in the quivering of your lip and in the tears welling up in your eyes and in the furrowing of your brows. I see it because I know you and I know you don’t hate me. But her own tears flooded her eyes and her throat tied into a knot, so Judy said “Okay.” and instinctively reached for Jen, because that’s what she needed and that’s what Jen needed too.

“No, stay the fuck away from me!” Her chest was met with a violent push and she stumbled on her own feet until she found balance.

That was fair. Judy understood. And she hated that she understood and she hated that she didn’t hate it at all, the same way Jen didn’t hate her and how much easier it would be if she did.  
Judy had expected rage. Before she knew her plan of soothing Jen back to stability would snowball into her finding the family she’d always wanted, before she fell deeper and deeper into the comfort of her new home, when she stood fifty feet away at Ted’s funeral and saw a blonde woman watching the life she’d always known being buried in front of her, Judy knew, if she were to be caught, whatever relationship she’d have built with that woman would be buried even deeper. And she expected rage. She was prepared for it. But she was not prepared to want to fight for what they’d both built, together.

“If there’s anything that I can do-“

"Yeah, you know what you can do, you can disappear off the fucking planet.” Jen spat, a little too quickly. Quickly in the way you’d spit words when you don’t mean them, when you just reach for whatever you know is going to hit the other person the hardest.

"Okay.” she meant that. A tear rolled down her cheek and resolve built in her stomach, the resolve to give Jen what she wanted, or rather, needed. And Jen regretted those words the moment she said them, she saw red and said them and she’s not the type of woman to regret what she says but she wishes she had caught them before they flew from her mouth because she didn’t mean any of it.

“I don’t want that,” She said, not quickly at all. “I fucking hate that I don’t.”

Judy stood still, unable to blink or breathe, with tears following a trail down to her chin.

“You don’t?”

“I should.” Jen’s lips trembled and she placed a hand on her stomach as a mother would on her child’s as if to magically soothe the ache that was growing to be unbearable. “I should want you to die a horrible fucking death, I should want you to suffer the same fucking fate my husband suffered at your hands,”

Judy took a small step forward and Jen a bigger step back.

“But you got what you wanted! You fucked with my head. It’s fucked.”

“I never wanted that,” Judy said through a sob. “ Jen, I never meant for it to lead to this. I didn’t expect any of it. I didn’t know what I was doing but I knew I had to do something and next thing I knew I was living in your house and I was caring for you and-“

Jen scoffed. Judy searched for her eyes but Jen refused to give them back because she was feeling one thing but thinking another and she knew her eyes would betray her faster than her words would.

“And for what?” she said, almost in a whisper. “To break me even more than you already had? Fucking my life up wasn’t enough, you had to fuck my heart up too? And knowing you knew the whole time, Judy…” Their eyes finally met. “Did any of it mean anything?”

Judy’s breath caught in her throat and her voice had to battle its way out. “All of it.” She said. “All of it meant everything.” And that was worse. It was worse that Judy meant it, it was worse that it was real. “You mean everything.”

"Stop lying to me.”

“I’m not lying to you.” Judy tried another step forward and Jen didn’t move this time. A small victory. “I lied to you, yes, I lied about Ted, about Steve, about what I did, but I never lied to you about what I feel for you, what I feel for the boys, or what I feel for our family,” Jen winced at that the way she had when Judy had confessed and had used that word and Jen had sworn to god she’d never want to hear it coming out of Judy’s lips ever again. “Jen, I’m still me.”

“And who the fuck are you, Judy?” Now it was Jen’s turn to take a step forward, and, Judy, with the brunt of Jen’s push still fresh on her chest had to fight the urge to take a step back. “Are you the Judy who got me high on the beach and made me laugh for the first time in three months or are you the Judy who tried to throw me off her trail so I wouldn’t find out that she murdered my husband?”

Judy felt the smallest she ever had. Smaller than she’d feel with Steve, smaller than she felt when Jen uncovered her first lie, smaller than she’d felt her whole entire life. And her instinct was to fold into herself and back away and accept Jen’s version of her because that’s what she’s always known, letting others mould her into what they wanted her to be to fit their own needs. But not with Jen, and not now. Not when it matters this much, not when Jen had loved her when she was her most self, not when fighting for her family became more important than her own insecurities. Judy wiped the tear on her cheek and shortened the distance between them.

“I’m the Judy who waited until you were all the way asleep,” she said through a pained smile. She was much closer to Jen now, close enough to see her reflection in Jen’s blue eyes and not only hear but feel Jen's struggle to still her breathing as her lungs begged to let them sob. “I’m the Judy whose arms you cried into when I saw your light on at four in the morning, I’m the Judy who held you through nightmares and got up earlier to make you your favourite breakfast,” her voice came out soft, yet firm, laced with feelings that were too big for her small body. Jen had stopped crying, but her face was wet with tears and her heart was pounding through her ears and she felt as if she’d explode into a billion pieces if Judy didn’t stop because she had to stop because this was too much and she suddenly missed Judy in a way she had never missed Ted and- “I’m the Judy who can not longer imagine life without you.“

And she exploded. Jen sucked air in, grabbed Judy’s face and crashed her lips against hers with such force Judy almost tumbled back, catching herself by throwing her arms around Jen’s body and all of a sudden they were kissing and what the fuck were they doing?

They kissed once, and then again. Jen let go of Judy’s face and reached for her waist, tugging at Judy’s dress because close wasn’t close enough and Judy laced her fingers through blonde hair as their lips moved in unison in a frenzy to feel more of each other.

This was them. Messy and unbalanced and unexpected yet right in a way neither could explain. They broke their own barriers with each other time after time, as if their lives had been tangled from the start, as if all of this was somehow, in its own fucked up way, meant to play out the way it had played out and culminate the way it was culminating. But it was all too much all too suddenly and it was all happening in what logic would consider the wrongest of moments. And, for Jen, logic eventually made itself aware.

So, when they finally separated, it was her who broke the contact, letting go of Judy as fast as she’d grabbed her and the air suddenly felt too cold without their bodies pressed against each other.

“Shit,” Jen whispered to the ground between breaths.

Judy had yet to take her eyes off her. “Jen-“

“You have to go.”

“But-“

“Just get the fuck out of here, Judy.”

Judy tried a small step forward, but then quickly spun around and did as she was told. Once Judy had disappeared behind the sliding doors, Jen turned to face the mirror behind her. She looked at her tear stained face, her bloodshot eyes, and her swollen lips, noticing faint remnants of her own lipstick smudged around her mouth as it still tingled from the roughness of their kiss.

“Fuck.”

**Author's Note:**

> big gay sigh am I right ladies!


End file.
